14 réponses à ce sujet

[Happycrow]

Hi folks.

I'm on a PW and can do a *little* 3d modelling.  We're having a problem insofar as we have a lot of custom content, particularly races, and need to use

a) half-orc models without the tusks
elf models with "normal" ears.

If I grab the .mdb and get a file that will modify those (I think I still have a student 3ds max floating around somewhere), and whack off the appropriate vertices while keeping the filename and such, and not touching anything that might involve skeletal rigging (which I've never done), will that result in the program spanking me royally for forgetting obvious things?

Thanks in advance,

-HC

[Dann-J]

You might be able to get rid of the half-orc tusks with a bit of creative reskinning. I've removed the earrings from winter wolves and gnolls by clipping them out with the alpha mask on their diffuse textures. You just have to hope there aren't any holes visible in the model afterward.

Elf ear reduction would require changing the models though.

[Happycrow]

Hey, DannJ, thanks.

We tried reskinning while my bud was putting in lots of custom facepaint and stuff. He was able to kindasorta blacken them out, but otherwise the skinning didn't seem to work for him. I'll see what I can figure out, though.

[Happycrow]

Okay, I opened up the .mdb using the importer, and figured out that
1) At least for vertex-modelling, Blender is SO much easier to deal with than 3dsmax.
2) Getting rid of the tusks is a piece of cake: just push the vertices back inside the face, resulting in a face with pronounced teeth *behind* the gums.

Exported it, and when I stick this sucker into the override, and start a game, I get the INCREDIBLE HEADLESS HALF-ORC!!

Which means there's something really, really basic I'm missing. Anybody have a clue they'd be willing to sell me about what it is?

[Dann-J]

Well, the tusks *are* gone...

To get rid of them on the skin you'd only have to modify the alpha channel of the diffuse texture. I've had a good close look at the half-orc heads (not a pretty sight), and it would seem that clipping the tusks out with the texture's alpha mask shouldn't introduce any invisible gaps

Not like those lousy dire-wolf spikes. Clipping them out gives you a giant wolfy susurrus...

[Happycrow]

Okay, DannJ, I'm going to need to do some pretty serious followup there -- I couldn't even recognize them on the diffuse texture. I was able to modify the skin, etcetera, but it seemed like the tusks were sticking outside of the texture entirely. Is there any way I could get some detail help there? It may be that I simply don't understand GIMP as well as I think I do, if it was that easy.

[Dann-J]

Figuring out where on the texture various body parts are isn't always easy. Sometimes what looks like a thigh ends up being an upper arm (and vise versa). I tend to use trial-and-error, and when that doesn't work I put differently coloured dots, lines and crosses on various parts of the skin and see where they end up.

Thankfully the MDB model viewer on the NWVault allows you to change textures on the fly without having to view things in the game, which speeds the process up a bit.

Modifié par DannJ, 15 mars 2012 - 04:41 .

[Happycrow]

I can't figure out how an alpha map would remove topography that's built into the model's vertices. The further this goes, the more I'm getting confused here.

Modifié par Happycrow, 15 mars 2012 - 05:08 .

[Dann-J]

The alpha map determines which parts of the model are shown and which are invisible. It's often used to make ragged edges on things (edges of hair, torn membranes, etc).

I've managed to find the tusk portions for the male half-orc heads 1 and 2 (and therefore 4 and 5, which use the same texture mapping). The tusk for heads 1 and 4 is near the upper-left corner, and is a small smudge of yellowy-grey to the right of what looks like a bit of palate. The tusk texture for male heads 2 and 5 is in the lower-left corner and looks a bit like a beatnik's beard (I tracked it down by noticing the striations at the base of the tusk model).

The tusks on male heads 3 and 6 are small and white, so they may be using part of the regular tooth texture parts. They would require a bit of investigative work (such as putting coloured dots on various tooth parts on the texture and seeing where they end up mapping to).

I used the MDB model viewer to look at the raw model for male head 1, and noticed that the tusk was slightly yellowish. This lead me to the upper-left corner of the texture, and sure enough when I clipped the alpha channel out and viewed the model with the new skin, I'd performed a tuskectomy. There weren't any visible holes in the clipped model either.

[Happycrow]

Oh, I feel like an idiot -- I thought that was the eyeball -- what I get for not cross-referencing the images against each other!!

[Dann-J]

Yeah - often the texture mapping is stretched so much over various model parts that what you see on the texture looks nothing like the body part you're looking for.

I had always assumed the beard-looking thing on two of the half-orc male head textures *was* an actual beard (it being right under the chin didn't help). It never occured to me it could have been a tusk! Not until I took a closer look at the tusk in the model viewer and noticed the striations, then hunted for striations of any kind on the texture (the 'beard' being the only ones to be found).

[Happycrow]

Found it, thanks. That "colored dots" will even let me do a "dirty hack" version on the elves while I figure out why my model alterations don't show up....

[Happycrow]

AAAAAND tuskless wonders are good to go! they're gap-toothed and look even more porcine than before, but it works.

Now I just gotta figure out what's going on with the "incredible headless half-orcs" so I can model those elf ears...

[phil76]

If you want to see how the texture is wrapped on the model and know a bit about 3DS Max or Blender :
Import the mdb in Blender/3DS Max
In the modifier panel, place yourself at 'Editable mesh level', ignore the warning
add an Unwrap UVW modifier
Go in edit mode for this unwrap
Click on the zoom extent cube to see your model unwrapped
in the top right of the window you should have checkerpattern, pick in place the texture wich should appear below
You have it now ! You can save the resul with 'Tools/render UV template => save image

Just don't export tthe mdb in case you did something wrong while doing what I explained above

[Happycrow]

Thanks, Phil.

It just occurred to me that I may have been being fundamentally dumb: if I import a model into Blender from its nwn2 format, does that automatically "lose" the materials data? It occurs to me that if so, and I needed to go back and respecify the materials file, that might explain why I have "headless half-orcs" once it comes IG.

Thanks in advance -- I'm in that horrible in-between stage where I know just enough to be a danger to myself and bystanders, but not enough to follow a lot of the stuff that more skilled folks take for granted.